I finally got it down in my brain. This is Willie Stein hook line sinker. Like I said NOTHING terrible but a BUST from 4.

Off topic -- Logic puzzle...if you have the 2 and the 4 pick with Towns off the board -- who do you take? Me, I take Russell and bet that Philly won't take Okafor to add to Nerlens Noel and Embiid. I assume if we took Okafor, then Russell is gone by the 4th pick.

EwingsGlass wrote:I agree. Good analogy, but not what I want from 4. I believe there is a spot on many teams for this type of role player. But he would truly need to take a huge step forward by adding that mid-range shot in order to validate the 4th pick overall. That said, in my head, he is more Deandre Jordan than Dan Gadzuric. I'm still dreaming od D. Russell dropping to us at the 4... or trading Melo to the Lakers for the 2 and some change.

Off topic -- Logic puzzle...if you have the 2 and the 4 pick with Towns off the board -- who do you take? Me, I take Russell and bet that Philly won't take Okafor to add to Nerlens Noel and Embiid. I assume if we took Okafor, then Russell is gone by the 4th pick.

I would take

Okafor #1
Towns #2
and I still cant answer after that.

BRIGGS wrote:

EwingsGlass wrote:I agree. Good analogy, but not what I want from 4. I believe there is a spot on many teams for this type of role player. But he would truly need to take a huge step forward by adding that mid-range shot in order to validate the 4th pick overall. That said, in my head, he is more Deandre Jordan than Dan Gadzuric. I'm still dreaming od D. Russell dropping to us at the 4... or trading Melo to the Lakers for the 2 and some change.

Off topic -- Logic puzzle...if you have the 2 and the 4 pick with Towns off the board -- who do you take? Me, I take Russell and bet that Philly won't take Okafor to add to Nerlens Noel and Embiid. I assume if we took Okafor, then Russell is gone by the 4th pick.

I would take

Okafor #1
Towns #2
and I still cant answer after that.

Do you think Philly would draft a big?

BRIGGS wrote:

EwingsGlass wrote:

BRIGGS wrote:

EwingsGlass wrote:I agree. Good analogy, but not what I want from 4. I believe there is a spot on many teams for this type of role player. But he would truly need to take a huge step forward by adding that mid-range shot in order to validate the 4th pick overall. That said, in my head, he is more Deandre Jordan than Dan Gadzuric. I'm still dreaming od D. Russell dropping to us at the 4... or trading Melo to the Lakers for the 2 and some change.

Off topic -- Logic puzzle...if you have the 2 and the 4 pick with Towns off the board -- who do you take? Me, I take Russell and bet that Philly won't take Okafor to add to Nerlens Noel and Embiid. I assume if we took Okafor, then Russell is gone by the 4th pick.

I would take

Okafor #1
Towns #2
and I still cant answer after that.

Do you think Philly would draft a big?

Oh if Philly had #2--they take the guard. I think

I'm saying, if I have 2 and 4 and Philly has 3... I take Russell and gamble that Philly takes Mudiay over the remaining Big. Its all silly logic, but this is the kind of stuff I waste time thinking about.

WCS is not Dan Gadzuric. He's similar just like your Jared Jeffries comparison. Only he's better than both of those guys. There's a reason most scouts compare him to Tyson Chandler. You can try to trash him all you want but that doesn't make what your saying true. WCS could go on to be a bust or JAG, but he's considered a worthy prospect in this draft.

nixluva wrote:

BRIGGS wrote:

nixluva wrote:This is almost an embarrassing effort. Do we need so many negative threads about WCS? This could easily have gone in the "Willie Stein weakness" thread or the "The fear of the WCS Monroe scenario" thread you created to diss WCS already.

WCS is not Dan Gadzuric. He's similar just like your Jared Jeffries comparison. Only he's better than both of those guys. There's a reason most scouts compare him to Tyson Chandler. You can try to trash him all you want but that doesn't make what your saying true. WCS could go on to be a bust or JAG, but he's considered a worthy prospect in this draft.

Actually its not a bash or a weakness--its a pretty good comparison. Both under achievers in college who had their motors questioned. The both lacked focus had raw offensive games jump like jumping jacks. Had a few mesmerizing games but for some reason cant get there.

Nixluva why did Willie Stein have 2 points and 5 breounds in a final four game in which he played 33 minutes? Can you go back and find me similar performance from a lead guy? How does a 7 foot 240 pound guy score 2 points on 1-4 in the biggest game in his life? Nope Dan Gadzuric is perfect it finally came to me--VERY similar guy.

It's hard to take you seriously with this stuff. You're mostly resting on 1 bad game which can happen to anyone. None of that means he won't go on to have a good NBA career.

This is a good article from the perspective of the T'Wolves taking WCS.

Willie Cauley-Stein is a limited offensive player. He will not create offense for himself outside of grabbing offensive rebounds. He isn't much of a consistent post threat. He will not space the floor. He struggled unbelievably from the free throw line his freshman year (37.2%), was terrible his sophomore year (48.2), before finally becoming passable in his junior year (61.7). If Cauley-Stein ever averages more than 12-15 PPG, I would be floored. He's just not destined to be a guy who leads his team in scoring, and he probably won't be 2nd or 3rd either. He's also going to turn 22 before the start of the 2015-16 NBA season, which makes him older than other prospects.

Willie Cauley-Stein is also a game-changing force of a center on defense, and a freak of nature. Going off the measurements and numbers of Kentucky's preseason pro day, he is about to become the biggest athletic freak in the NBA. He's 7 feet tall, 240 pounds, and has a body fat percentage of 6.4%. He has a standing reach of 9'2" (same as Nerlens Noel, Tyson Chandler, and 2 inches higher than Anthony Davis), a no step vertical of 31 inches, and a max vertical of 37. The combination of his vertical and reach gives him a 12'3" maximum vertical reach, which would be the highest vertical reach in NBA Draft Combine history. Impressive numbers, but the most impressive part is how well he moves at this massive size.

The guy is a blur on the floor, running with fluidity and form almost unthinkable for a 7-footer. In fact, he finished 4th on the team during the pro day's 3/4th court sprint, coming in ahead of guard Aaron Harrison. His time of 3.15 seconds would tie the 2nd fastest mark for a center in NBA Draft Combine history, only 0.01 seconds slower than 1st place. In the lane agility drill, which is a test that combines sprinting, backpedalling, and two defensive slide across the length and width of the lane twice, he came in 2nd on the team with a time of 10.22 seconds. If he runs that speed at the NBA Draft Combine, it would've been the fastest time ever for a center by 0.4 of a second, and the 3rd fastest time in the combine's history for any position. All from a guy who is 7 feet tall. If you want to see him run without the 94 foot by 50 foot constraints of a basketball court, watch this highlight tape of him playing wide receiver in high school.

How many 7 footers on earth could be a wideout, never mind one who outruns the secondary on a slant, even if it's at only the high school level? When Willie Cauley-Stein hears his name called on draft day, he will take his place as the outlier in a league full of outliers.

His athleticism won't automatically make him a dominant force in the NBA, I for one haven't forgotten about the likes of Tyrus Thomas or Stromile Swift. Besides, games are won on the floor, not in Draft Combine measurements. However, in cases where an exceptionally athletic player wasn't able to last in the NBA, it is often the case that the player was undersized to begin with. This is also the problem that Aaron Gordon of the Orlando Magic is currently struggling with. When you make the leap from college to the NBA, you quickly find that everybody at every position is suddenly 2-3 inches taller than they were in college. Guys like Thomas, Swift, and now Gordon, all struggled mightily with this new dimension. Instead of being on equal footing physically and then overpowering the competition with athleticism, they were now undermanned physically and trying to make up for it with athleticism. It's a dangerous predicament, and few players in the NBA are able to adjust to the point where they are able to survive.

Willie Cauley-Stein doesn't have this problem, because he's easily big enough to play center in the NBA. We desperately need to draft a center, that's something that is pretty hard to argue against with all our youth at the other four positions. Assuming that's our targeted position, shouldn't we be taking a good, hard, look at the guy who has a solid chance to set three NBA Draft Combine records next month and is 7 feet tall?

This mix of size and athleticism possessed by Cauley-Stein makes him an incredibly versatile defender, and it's put on full display when we contrast his sophomore and junior seasons at Kentucky.

During Cauley-Stein's sophomore year, he shared many of his minutes with Julius Randle, an undersized power forward. Outside of Cauley-Stein, the 2013-14 Kentucky basketball team lacked a competent rim protector. Despite sharing starting duties with small forward Alex Poythress, who was being given starts to allow for more spacing so that Julius Randle could do his human bowling ball impersonation, Cauley-Stein flourished. He anchored the defense magnificently, posted the lowest DRtg on the team by more than 6 points, and blocked 106 shots, 75 more than the second place Randle.

Simply put, Willie Cauley-Stein's production was the entire summation of Kentucky's interior defense for the 2013-14 season, despite only playing 24 minutes a night. His block rate of 12.3% for the season was even higher than Joel Embiid's 11.7% during his freshman year at Kansas. That season, Willie Cauley-Stein blocked almost 1 out of every 8 opposing 2PA, which includes mid-range jumpers as well as interior finishing attempts. Ball handlers pulled up for floaters, cutters thought twice about entering the lane, and everybody on Kentucky's defense was able to inch toward their man and into passing lanes as Cauley-Stein served as their security blanket. His Dtrg was 91.5, the lowest on the team by 6 points per 100 possessions, and almost 9 points lower than the team's collective Dtrg. Everybody feared the rim protection of Willie Cauley-Stein, and rightfully so. Willie Cauley-Stein was an imposing pillar of shot blocking excellence. Finishing over him wasn't quite the 13th labor of Hercules, but it did require a Herculean effort.

However, this season everything changed. Randle was gone, and replaced by the far-superior-defensively Karl Anthony Towns. The 2014-15 Kentucky Wildcats had a problem that every college team in America could only dream of having: They had two immensely talented 7-footers on the same team. In almost every other example of this in college basketball history, one 7-footer won the starting center job, and the other was relegated to the role of back-up. However, Willie Cauley-Stein's defensive versatility coupled with Karl Anthony-Town offensive versatility allowed for copious space for creative lineups. But, this year, instead of Cauley-Stein patrolling the middle, it was decided that the slower Towns would be allowed to clog the lane. Cauley-Stein was going to be the one to patrol the perimeter. As we all know, it was a screaming success. Kentucky rattled off 38 straight wins, and it could've easily been 40.

This time, Cauley-Stein succeeded in a very differnt defensive role. Kentucky's entire defensive scheme revolved around switching ball screens. While Cauley-Stein was not a "lock down" perimeter defender, he definitely won vastly more battles out there than he lost. For a man of his size, his lateral quickness was foreign to most attacking perimeter players, and good coaching ensured that Cauley-Stein always had his arms outstretched to the full breadth of his 7'2" wingspan. There wasn't a single instance in any of Kentucky's 39 games this year where a perimeter player was able to consistently burn Willie Cauley-Stein. While Karl Anthony-Towns was often waiting in the weeds to clean up any messes, Cauley-Stein usually took care of his own mistakes. Towns' help defense was often more of a supplement than necessity.

Instead of leading Kentucky in blocks like the year prior, Cauley-Stein led them in steals the 2014-15 season. Cauley-Stein's own block numbers plummeted, down to a still-respectable 67, but he never complained. He understood that his statistical sacrifice was in the best interest of the team. Some NBA scouts have suggested that he might be able to guard all five positions when he enters the league. That may be hyperbole, but in hedging situations I think that he'll be able to keep up with the ball-handler and push them away from the basket, stunting the pick and roll before it ever gains momentum.

The bottom line is that his versatility on the perimeter coupled with Towns' addition transformed them from a great to a transcendent defense, even if they didn't achieve their ultimate goal of a perfect season.Towns' and Cauley-Stein's numbers from this season were flooring, leading the Wildcats with scaldingly-low DRtg's of 78.1 for Towns and 80.0 for Cauley-Stein respectively. Out of players who played 500 minutes, those DRtg's are the 4th and 5th lowest in college since the 2009-10 season, when DRtg first started being tracked. They're also the best 2 figures ever recorded in a major conference, barely edging out Anthony Davis' mark of 80.3 in 2011-12. Willie Cauley-Stein's freshman and sophomore seasons might've been great for defensive efficiency (his DRtg was 91.1 his freshman year), but his junior season was historic.

In addition to how extraordinary he was on defense, he was actually quite good on offense as well, despite not being a prolific scorer or creator.

In the 2013-14 season, his Otrg was 122.8, best on the team out of players who played 200 or more minutes, and roughly 10 points better than the team mark. In 2014-15, his Otrg dipped slightly to 119.8, which was 4th on the team among players with over 200 minutes played. This may seem strange on first glance, considering that Cauley-Stein never averaged more than 9 PPG during his 3 seasons, but his great marks are a combination of several factors that made Cauley-Stein an important offensive player. Cauley-Stein is a good (but not great) offensive rebounder. Offensive rebounds often lead to easy dunks and layups, which equals more points. Other factors contributing to his excellent offensive ratings don't show up as easily in the box score.

First, opposing teams feared being beaten with a lob to Cauley-Stein, which would invariably lead to a thunderous alley-oop. Opponents feared this so much that whenever Cauley-Stein found a seam to dive to the basket through, things happened. A least one, and usually two, help-side defenders would abandon their men to attempt to beat Cauley-Stein to the takeoff point of the impending alley-oop. Opposing players knew they couldn't beat him in a jumping contest, so the only way to stop these alley-oops was by getting in Cauley-Stein's way before he was in the air. This leads to a huge spacing and match up problems in defenses though, as everybody has to rotate to an open man. This often leads to mismatches, wreckless closeouts, open corner 3's, big-guarded-by-little post-up opportunities, or this:

Second, Cauley-Stein gets off the ground incredibly quickly, and he tries to dunk everything. This might not seem like it would help an offense that much, but, it actually does in a very odd way. Because Cauley-Stein is such a big target for passes and possession such great hands, a hearken back to his wide receiver days, he is often looked to in situations where the defense has collapsed on a penetrating teammate. However, opposing bigs read the scouting report and they know this, so they are wary to leave him in situations that would normally call for them to commit to help side defense. Further complicating this dilemma is that if they do commit to help across the lane, and are able to force a bad shot, Cauley-Stein is ready to clean up anything that misses long.

Lastly, he's an outstanding finisher. According to NBADraft.net, Cauley-Stein shot 72.5% at the rim this season. While that percentage is driven up by the amount of dunks that he has, he has also shown to have some nice touch inside. He has a workable jump hook on which he exhibits nice touch on around the rim. He is also nimble on his feet which will allow him to escape out of situations where his matchup appears to have walled him up. I'm not saying that he has an amazing offensive repertoire, but what he does, he does incredibly well, and it can be an offensive force in the NBA.

If you're looking for the effect this can have in the NBA, look no further than Tyson Chandler. He is the master of this school of offense, and despite being known primarily for his defense, he has led the league in OTrg 4 of the past 5 season. Obviously you have to pair Chandler with a good passing ball handler and some other scoring threat, he's not going to carry the load by himself. But, if you supply him with those pieces, he's fantastic. His career high of 133 in both 2012-13 and 2014-15 are tied for the 6th highest OTrg of all time. Not bad for a guy who never averaged more than 12 PPG. With the wing scorers the Wolves have (Wiggins, Shabazz, and LaVine, all of whom will only get better from here) and a point guard who is probably the best passer in the NBA, this is a situation that calls for a Chandler-type player.

http://www.canishoopus.com/2015/4/22/8454569/an-argument-for-willie-cauley-stein

1 bad game? Nixluva his career is littered with sub par games. You're a Johnny come lately on WCS you havent watched him for 3 years if you dont know how inconsistent he is--youre simply reading scouting reports. Anyone can write an article on why they think a player should go first.

nixluva wrote:

BRIGGS wrote:

nixluva wrote:

BRIGGS wrote:

nixluva wrote:This is almost an embarrassing effort. Do we need so many negative threads about WCS? This could easily have gone in the "Willie Stein weakness" thread or the "The fear of the WCS Monroe scenario" thread you created to diss WCS already.

WCS is not Dan Gadzuric. He's similar just like your Jared Jeffries comparison. Only he's better than both of those guys. There's a reason most scouts compare him to Tyson Chandler. You can try to trash him all you want but that doesn't make what your saying true. WCS could go on to be a bust or JAG, but he's considered a worthy prospect in this draft.

Actually its not a bash or a weakness--its a pretty good comparison. Both under achievers in college who had their motors questioned. The both lacked focus had raw offensive games jump like jumping jacks. Had a few mesmerizing games but for some reason cant get there.

Nixluva why did Willie Stein have 2 points and 5 breounds in a final four game in which he played 33 minutes? Can you go back and find me similar performance from a lead guy? How does a 7 foot 240 pound guy score 2 points on 1-4 in the biggest game in his life? Nope Dan Gadzuric is perfect it finally came to me--VERY similar guy.

It's hard to take you seriously with this stuff. You're mostly resting on 1 bad game which can happen to anyone. None of that means he won't go on to have a good NBA career.

This is a good article from the perspective of the T'Wolves taking WCS.

Willie Cauley-Stein is a limited offensive player. He will not create offense for himself outside of grabbing offensive rebounds. He isn't much of a consistent post threat. He will not space the floor. He struggled unbelievably from the free throw line his freshman year (37.2%), was terrible his sophomore year (48.2), before finally becoming passable in his junior year (61.7). If Cauley-Stein ever averages more than 12-15 PPG, I would be floored. He's just not destined to be a guy who leads his team in scoring, and he probably won't be 2nd or 3rd either. He's also going to turn 22 before the start of the 2015-16 NBA season, which makes him older than other prospects.

Willie Cauley-Stein is also a game-changing force of a center on defense, and a freak of nature. Going off the measurements and numbers of Kentucky's preseason pro day, he is about to become the biggest athletic freak in the NBA. He's 7 feet tall, 240 pounds, and has a body fat percentage of 6.4%. He has a standing reach of 9'2" (same as Nerlens Noel, Tyson Chandler, and 2 inches higher than Anthony Davis), a no step vertical of 31 inches, and a max vertical of 37. The combination of his vertical and reach gives him a 12'3" maximum vertical reach, which would be the highest vertical reach in NBA Draft Combine history. Impressive numbers, but the most impressive part is how well he moves at this massive size.

The guy is a blur on the floor, running with fluidity and form almost unthinkable for a 7-footer. In fact, he finished 4th on the team during the pro day's 3/4th court sprint, coming in ahead of guard Aaron Harrison. His time of 3.15 seconds would tie the 2nd fastest mark for a center in NBA Draft Combine history, only 0.01 seconds slower than 1st place. In the lane agility drill, which is a test that combines sprinting, backpedalling, and two defensive slide across the length and width of the lane twice, he came in 2nd on the team with a time of 10.22 seconds. If he runs that speed at the NBA Draft Combine, it would've been the fastest time ever for a center by 0.4 of a second, and the 3rd fastest time in the combine's history for any position. All from a guy who is 7 feet tall. If you want to see him run without the 94 foot by 50 foot constraints of a basketball court, watch this highlight tape of him playing wide receiver in high school.

How many 7 footers on earth could be a wideout, never mind one who outruns the secondary on a slant, even if it's at only the high school level? When Willie Cauley-Stein hears his name called on draft day, he will take his place as the outlier in a league full of outliers.

His athleticism won't automatically make him a dominant force in the NBA, I for one haven't forgotten about the likes of Tyrus Thomas or Stromile Swift. Besides, games are won on the floor, not in Draft Combine measurements. However, in cases where an exceptionally athletic player wasn't able to last in the NBA, it is often the case that the player was undersized to begin with. This is also the problem that Aaron Gordon of the Orlando Magic is currently struggling with. When you make the leap from college to the NBA, you quickly find that everybody at every position is suddenly 2-3 inches taller than they were in college. Guys like Thomas, Swift, and now Gordon, all struggled mightily with this new dimension. Instead of being on equal footing physically and then overpowering the competition with athleticism, they were now undermanned physically and trying to make up for it with athleticism. It's a dangerous predicament, and few players in the NBA are able to adjust to the point where they are able to survive.

Willie Cauley-Stein doesn't have this problem, because he's easily big enough to play center in the NBA. We desperately need to draft a center, that's something that is pretty hard to argue against with all our youth at the other four positions. Assuming that's our targeted position, shouldn't we be taking a good, hard, look at the guy who has a solid chance to set three NBA Draft Combine records next month and is 7 feet tall?

This mix of size and athleticism possessed by Cauley-Stein makes him an incredibly versatile defender, and it's put on full display when we contrast his sophomore and junior seasons at Kentucky.

During Cauley-Stein's sophomore year, he shared many of his minutes with Julius Randle, an undersized power forward. Outside of Cauley-Stein, the 2013-14 Kentucky basketball team lacked a competent rim protector. Despite sharing starting duties with small forward Alex Poythress, who was being given starts to allow for more spacing so that Julius Randle could do his human bowling ball impersonation, Cauley-Stein flourished. He anchored the defense magnificently, posted the lowest DRtg on the team by more than 6 points, and blocked 106 shots, 75 more than the second place Randle.

Simply put, Willie Cauley-Stein's production was the entire summation of Kentucky's interior defense for the 2013-14 season, despite only playing 24 minutes a night. His block rate of 12.3% for the season was even higher than Joel Embiid's 11.7% during his freshman year at Kansas. That season, Willie Cauley-Stein blocked almost 1 out of every 8 opposing 2PA, which includes mid-range jumpers as well as interior finishing attempts. Ball handlers pulled up for floaters, cutters thought twice about entering the lane, and everybody on Kentucky's defense was able to inch toward their man and into passing lanes as Cauley-Stein served as their security blanket. His Dtrg was 91.5, the lowest on the team by 6 points per 100 possessions, and almost 9 points lower than the team's collective Dtrg. Everybody feared the rim protection of Willie Cauley-Stein, and rightfully so. Willie Cauley-Stein was an imposing pillar of shot blocking excellence. Finishing over him wasn't quite the 13th labor of Hercules, but it did require a Herculean effort.

However, this season everything changed. Randle was gone, and replaced by the far-superior-defensively Karl Anthony Towns. The 2014-15 Kentucky Wildcats had a problem that every college team in America could only dream of having: They had two immensely talented 7-footers on the same team. In almost every other example of this in college basketball history, one 7-footer won the starting center job, and the other was relegated to the role of back-up. However, Willie Cauley-Stein's defensive versatility coupled with Karl Anthony-Town offensive versatility allowed for copious space for creative lineups. But, this year, instead of Cauley-Stein patrolling the middle, it was decided that the slower Towns would be allowed to clog the lane. Cauley-Stein was going to be the one to patrol the perimeter. As we all know, it was a screaming success. Kentucky rattled off 38 straight wins, and it could've easily been 40.

This time, Cauley-Stein succeeded in a very differnt defensive role. Kentucky's entire defensive scheme revolved around switching ball screens. While Cauley-Stein was not a "lock down" perimeter defender, he definitely won vastly more battles out there than he lost. For a man of his size, his lateral quickness was foreign to most attacking perimeter players, and good coaching ensured that Cauley-Stein always had his arms outstretched to the full breadth of his 7'2" wingspan. There wasn't a single instance in any of Kentucky's 39 games this year where a perimeter player was able to consistently burn Willie Cauley-Stein. While Karl Anthony-Towns was often waiting in the weeds to clean up any messes, Cauley-Stein usually took care of his own mistakes. Towns' help defense was often more of a supplement than necessity.

Instead of leading Kentucky in blocks like the year prior, Cauley-Stein led them in steals the 2014-15 season. Cauley-Stein's own block numbers plummeted, down to a still-respectable 67, but he never complained. He understood that his statistical sacrifice was in the best interest of the team. Some NBA scouts have suggested that he might be able to guard all five positions when he enters the league. That may be hyperbole, but in hedging situations I think that he'll be able to keep up with the ball-handler and push them away from the basket, stunting the pick and roll before it ever gains momentum.

The bottom line is that his versatility on the perimeter coupled with Towns' addition transformed them from a great to a transcendent defense, even if they didn't achieve their ultimate goal of a perfect season.Towns' and Cauley-Stein's numbers from this season were flooring, leading the Wildcats with scaldingly-low DRtg's of 78.1 for Towns and 80.0 for Cauley-Stein respectively. Out of players who played 500 minutes, those DRtg's are the 4th and 5th lowest in college since the 2009-10 season, when DRtg first started being tracked. They're also the best 2 figures ever recorded in a major conference, barely edging out Anthony Davis' mark of 80.3 in 2011-12. Willie Cauley-Stein's freshman and sophomore seasons might've been great for defensive efficiency (his DRtg was 91.1 his freshman year), but his junior season was historic.

In addition to how extraordinary he was on defense, he was actually quite good on offense as well, despite not being a prolific scorer or creator.

In the 2013-14 season, his Otrg was 122.8, best on the team out of players who played 200 or more minutes, and roughly 10 points better than the team mark. In 2014-15, his Otrg dipped slightly to 119.8, which was 4th on the team among players with over 200 minutes played. This may seem strange on first glance, considering that Cauley-Stein never averaged more than 9 PPG during his 3 seasons, but his great marks are a combination of several factors that made Cauley-Stein an important offensive player. Cauley-Stein is a good (but not great) offensive rebounder. Offensive rebounds often lead to easy dunks and layups, which equals more points. Other factors contributing to his excellent offensive ratings don't show up as easily in the box score.

First, opposing teams feared being beaten with a lob to Cauley-Stein, which would invariably lead to a thunderous alley-oop. Opponents feared this so much that whenever Cauley-Stein found a seam to dive to the basket through, things happened. A least one, and usually two, help-side defenders would abandon their men to attempt to beat Cauley-Stein to the takeoff point of the impending alley-oop. Opposing players knew they couldn't beat him in a jumping contest, so the only way to stop these alley-oops was by getting in Cauley-Stein's way before he was in the air. This leads to a huge spacing and match up problems in defenses though, as everybody has to rotate to an open man. This often leads to mismatches, wreckless closeouts, open corner 3's, big-guarded-by-little post-up opportunities, or this:

Second, Cauley-Stein gets off the ground incredibly quickly, and he tries to dunk everything. This might not seem like it would help an offense that much, but, it actually does in a very odd way. Because Cauley-Stein is such a big target for passes and possession such great hands, a hearken back to his wide receiver days, he is often looked to in situations where the defense has collapsed on a penetrating teammate. However, opposing bigs read the scouting report and they know this, so they are wary to leave him in situations that would normally call for them to commit to help side defense. Further complicating this dilemma is that if they do commit to help across the lane, and are able to force a bad shot, Cauley-Stein is ready to clean up anything that misses long.

Lastly, he's an outstanding finisher. According to NBADraft.net, Cauley-Stein shot 72.5% at the rim this season. While that percentage is driven up by the amount of dunks that he has, he has also shown to have some nice touch inside. He has a workable jump hook on which he exhibits nice touch on around the rim. He is also nimble on his feet which will allow him to escape out of situations where his matchup appears to have walled him up. I'm not saying that he has an amazing offensive repertoire, but what he does, he does incredibly well, and it can be an offensive force in the NBA.

If you're looking for the effect this can have in the NBA, look no further than Tyson Chandler. He is the master of this school of offense, and despite being known primarily for his defense, he has led the league in OTrg 4 of the past 5 season. Obviously you have to pair Chandler with a good passing ball handler and some other scoring threat, he's not going to carry the load by himself. But, if you supply him with those pieces, he's fantastic. His career high of 133 in both 2012-13 and 2014-15 are tied for the 6th highest OTrg of all time. Not bad for a guy who never averaged more than 12 PPG. With the wing scorers the Wolves have (Wiggins, Shabazz, and LaVine, all of whom will only get better from here) and a point guard who is probably the best passer in the NBA, this is a situation that calls for a Chandler-type player.

http://www.canishoopus.com/2015/4/22/8454569/an-argument-for-willie-cauley-stein

1 bad game? Nixluva his career is littered with sub par games.

And still he is top 10 on most mock drafts. I think you're selling this guy short in terms of his value at the NBA level.

callmened wrote:

BRIGGS wrote:14-21 hes a good pick #4 is insane. Hes not skilled enough and too many other issues. If somoene is making apick of Willie Stein high their cognitive evaluation is simply off.

yikes. i wouldnt go that far.

This guy really hates WCS. He's created 4 threads on him. He was the first to even suggest the Knicks were planning on taking him. LMAO. I never even thought about him at 4 until Briggs created a thread about the knicks will pick him. Wow....some of us change like the weather. But thats ok....Thats what happens when you are a fan of a team with 5 holes to fill.

Phil will pick the best player available....Regardless of what we think. All we can do is go off of his tweets and articles. And from what I read, he prefers Towns over Ok4.....WCS over Kaminsky.

Defense over Offense

Two way over One way

But seriously, if he is that bad, then why are you trying so hard to convince us otherwise, with 4 different threads.....probably a 5th on the way!

in regards to kaminsky, the whole team packed the paint vs kentucky and dared them to shoot. WCS has no offense expect for lob dunks. great game plan by bo ryan. i worry about kaminskys lack of defense...too upright in his stance. doesnt defend pick and roll well.but like WCS he will be a productive NBA player...just a different type